Claimed footage of insurgents speaking in front of the 48 Iranians seized in Syria on Saturday --- Tehran says the men are pilgrims, but the Free Syrian Army claims they are members of the Iranian military assisting the Assad regime

The Rial is now approaching its lowest point in a currency crisis that started last autumn.

1345 GMT: CyberWatch. Minister of Communication Reza Taghipour has claimed that the "national Internet", providing alternative services to e-mail and Web providers such as Google and Yahoo!, will be implemented within a month.

1336 GMT: Fraud Watch. Aftab reports that the Canadian branch of Interpol has rejected Iran's demand for the extradition of Mahmoud Reza Khavari, the former head of Bank Melli.

Khavari, facing allegations of involvement in a $2.6 billion bank fraud, fled the Islamic Republic for Canada last September. The banker holds both Iranian and Canadian citizeship.

Four men were sentenced to death last week for their role in the fraud, with 35 other defendants receiving lengthy prison sentences.

1330 GMT: CyberWatch. Another pro-Ahmadinejad blogger has been sentenced to prison --- Mohammad Hassan Roozitalab has been given a four-month term.

1025 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Syrian Front). Kazem Jalali, a member of Parliiament's National Security Committee, has advised Iranian citizens to refrain from traveling to Syria individually to use formal caravans instead.

Jalali said 48 Iranians seized by insurgents on Saturday --- claimed as pilgrims by Tehran and as members of the Iranian military and military by the Free Syrian Army --- were not in one of the caravans.

0949 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Syrian Front). More on the video of the 48 Iranians captured by insurgents on Saturday near Damascus (see 0649 GMT and top of entry)....

The Saudi King has called for “extraordinary Islamic solidarity meeting to ensure... unity during this delicate time as the Muslim world faces dangers of fragmentation and sedition,” reported the Saudi Gazette.

0759 GMT: Currency Watch. Amid the worries over the Iranian Rial, the head of the Central Bank, Mahmoud Bahmani, has put out yet another statement promising action to solve the problem, with a single rate for foreign exchange in the next days.

The Islamic Republic had five different rates last year before the Central Bank tried and failed to impose a single level at the start of 2012. In recent weeks, there have been more rates introduced for imports.

It is unclear how the rate will deal with the 70% gap between the official rate of 12260:1 for the Rial v. the dollar and the "open-market" rate of 20200:1 --- Bahmani said the rate of 12260:1 will be maintained for only five essential goods.

0639 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Syrian Front) Confusion this morning over 48 Iranian men who were abducted on Saturday as they travelled to the Damascus airport --- al-Mayadeen TV said they were released, but an official in the Iranian embassy denied the report.

Meanwhile, Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has put out a "severe warning" to the West and the "Zionist" nation to stop interfering in Syria. He told the Majlis, "Several decades ago, America took hundreds of thousands of lives in Hiroshima."

That may be a timely message, as the Ahmadinejad Government faces a significant moral and political choice today. Jomhouri Eslami claims that the Administrative Court has officially published the ruling that Presidential aide Saeed Mortazavi must resign as head of the Social Security Fund.

This is a "red line" case for the President, who has defied court orders since last year for the suspension of Mortazavi from his duties, because of his alleged role as Tehran Prosecutor General in the abuses and killings at the Kahrizak detention centre in summer 2009.

After the Court put out its initial ruling last month for Mortazavi's departure from the Fund, 1st Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi defiantly said the aide would not step down. Conservative critics of the Government have warned that Ministers, beginning with the Minister of Labour, will be impeached if the resistance continues.